Naming your Work

Titling my work has become a large part of my writing process. In fact, it's usually the very first thing I do. Before I have any characters or scenes, even before I have a real story I come up with a title.

My titles are usually the basis for the main idea of whatever I'm writing be it poem or short story. That way whenever I feel like I'm straying away from the main point of the story I can read my title and it brings me right back to where I need to be.

One reason I'm writing this post is because recently I wrote a short story that I've yet to name. I didn't stick to my usual process of title first then write, and now I'm stuck with a nameless story. When this has happened to me in the past I've just went with the name of one of my major characters or a particularly important line. None of those seemed to fit with this short story. Because the story isn't character driven it would seem artificial to use the name of a character as the title.

So I thought maybe I'll go with an action that was performed or describe an important scene in five words (any more than 7 and the title would be too long for my taste), and that seemed like a more thesable idea.

What began as "Untitled short story"
evolved to "Alexandera"
then moved on to "Descent into the Realm"
and then became known as "The Demon-hybrid Huntress"

The title still needs some work, but I feel better working with any title rather than "untitled."

I also take advantage of name generators. It's always fun to see the titles these things come up with.
Here are a few of my favorites: Title-o-Matic
Band and Song name generator
Title Generator


Enjoy!